Plot Lines

Less than a three weeks until Training Camp opens and we begin to sort out this mess of newbies wearing the Red and Gold.

But I’m more enthused about the return of football in general than the Niners in particular. Our boys are more of a curiosity piece this year than anything else.

Arizona and Seattle are the stable entities of the NFC West. They’ll no doubt duke it out for supremacy this year. Again. The Rams and 49ers both have bright young new offensive minded head coaches for two teams that have had crappy offenses for quite some time. Nobody knows how these two teams will fare this year. The Rams will have Wade Phillips as their DC, which might be enough to give them the edge in the battle of the bottom feeders.

The NFC West is no longer the best division in the NFC, though. That distinction might go to the NFC South, or even the East. Here are some other NFC story lines for the coming year:

It will be fun watching how far Dallas falls off from last year’s great season/belly flop in the playoffs. It’s twenty-four years and counting since Jerry Jones fired Jimmy Johnson and became his own GM. And he hasn’t remotely sniffed a Super Bowl since.

Can Atlanta overcome a gigantic Super Bowl hangover and the loss of Kyle Shanahan, or fade back into the pack like Carolina did last year?

Will Tampa Bay actually win the NFC South?

Will Washington fall apart after the ugly ouster of GM Scot McCloughan?

Will Blaine Gabbert replace an injured Carson Palmer and lead the Cardinals to the playoffs?

Will the media continue to pimp for Colin Kaepernick while he relentless kicks dirt on America at every opportunity?

Can Green Bay ever get over the hump again?

And, for me at least, there’s another whole season of nasty emails from Chuck to look forward to. The gift that keeps on giving.

22 comments on “Plot Lines”

Some teams for me to watch have two we play this year, JAX and TENN. They both plumbed the depths and did excellent rebuilds through the draft.

CLE had a tremendous draft and Gregg Williams could plug them into the D and get big results this season. Their front 7 got major new pieces. FA filled major holes at RG and C and could allow their 3 young QB’s to maybe gel a supporting cast into a credible O this year.

On the other hand there is us.

I do like our approach. No impact FA’s wasted on O. Hoyer a role model and teacher for the new O of KS. Keep it marginal with no miracle wins.

NFC East and AFC South we may go winless against. Even with that we cannot outdo NYJ.

The one-gap base 3-4 should see Donald penetrating at both nose tackle and outside tackle, and he’ll have a more traditional four-man role when the Rams move to their nickel package. But wherever Phillips lines up his players, history tells us they’ll be in their best positions to succeed.

So what does this tell us? Throw the ball less to Julio Jones and you’ll have a more explosive team? That alone would be a poor strategy. Instead, Shanahan’s target distribution is part of a broader offensive philosophy: force the defense to protect the entire field, and create situations that allow you to exploit mismatches and attack defenders who make mistakes. Shanahan’s outside-zone run game is a part of this philosophy because it forces the defense to protect horizontally due to the threat of the outside run and cutback, and vertically due to the threat of the play-action pass. When a defense over-commits in one direction, they’re attacked in the opposite direction, and the result is usually an explosive play. Shanahan is also balanced in the direction of his outside-zone runs; in 2016, the Falcons had 73 outside-zone runs outside the left tackle, and 79 outside the right tackle. Of those plays, 20 were explosive runs — defined as 10 yards or more — with 10 to the left side and 10 to the right.

The best pocket QB’s can do post snap reads and sync up with targets that are allowed to find open space dependent on those reads. Posted an mmqb a while back on Carson Palmer doing that.

With our oline that may not be doable. 12 and 13 O’s will allow for seperation using TE’s with size mismatches on db’s. So TE’s like MacDonald, Kittle, and Hikutini are key.

“I got to work with Brian for one year when we were in Cleveland together,” Shanahan said in May. “He can execute an entire offense. He can read a defense. He can hang in that pocket. He’s a guy that’s very tough. He doesn’t watch the rush. He distributes the ball to whoever should get the ball based on the coverage and he allows guys to make plays.”

So KS wants a fearless QB capable of going through all of his reads. Knowing where all targets are and when they open up. Mostly short and intermediate patterns given the pocket holding up. Patterns designed to open up one target. QB needs to find or throes the ball away. Needs that clock in his head.

I share the interest in seeing what the O-line looks like this year. There could be a few changes. Which will make things tougher short term, until the new group has time to mesh as a unit. But then, I still think this year is a learning curve anyway. If we get anywhere near .500 I’d be very surprised. 5-11 or so feels more reasonable.

“In 2016, Shanahan ran outside zone on just under half of all running plays — and the other half are plays Hyde has excelled in over his 49ers career. Also, running backs — especially in Shanahan’s offense — do a lot more than simply run the ball.”

Article does not mention what run blocking is needed for the 50% plus runs that were not outside zone. Whether inside zone or power gap, can I conclude that Trent Brown and Garnett excel at that and compensate for their ZBS outside zone ability.

Garnett has the athleticism to be adequate or better with outside zone. How will oline accommodate an inadequate RT with outside zone runs to either left or right.

Does Trent Brown get traded or we keep with changes in RT blocking for outside zone runs.